In The Darkness Where There Is Light
by LovingOnce
Summary: One-shot. This can take place really anywhere after Regina's redemption. I just needed a break from writing my other story and this is what came out. Reviews give us life. Thanks!


A thousand times she's heard it in her mind. That tiny voice that's whispered into her ear late at night when she's alone in a house full of rooms with no one to occupy them. She'd sit up in a panic and run her fingers through sweat-soaked hair and tried hard to will the voice away, but a thousand times it would speak and in a frustrated cry she would close her eyes and answer:

Stop. Stop thinking, stop hoping, stop caring, stop believing that things will be different, that your life will change for the better, because you're not worthy.

It's been more than one rough night for her. She's been plagued lately by nightmares that never seem to cease. Her past doesn't feel so distant as it once had... as it does to the rest of her friends. They forgave her. They remind her of it every day when they say hello or ask her how her day was or invite her to stay and share a meal, but in the end when she goes home to her barren house, she remembers all of the memories that she's pushed far down into the depths of her psyche- of who she was when the only thing she could feel was anger and vengeance and hate; when her only reminder of the murders she committed, the lives she changed, the hearts she stole from living, breathing bodies (only to forget who they were once her collections began to overflow in her vault) is the fact that she still has some of them locked away in tiny wooden boxes with no names and no way to identify them. To return them now would only open old wounds, causing more suffering. It's better to keep them safe. Better to make amends by protecting them in her own dark, twisted way.

Tonight, she smiles through dinner with Snow, David, Henry and Emma. They talk about how quiet and peaceful it is now that they haven't had to fight any big bads in a long while. She nods and agrees with a low hum, as she chews and picks at her dry salad. They all laugh about something Grumpy did this morning and it has Henry holding onto his side from a happiness he can't contain. It makes her heart swell for a moment and her expression is honest and full of love. She scans the table slowly and chuckles softly, clearing her throat before reaching for her glass of water. She moves to place a napkin underneath it, as it's been accumulating droplets on its base from the condensation. She takes a sip and sighs.

"Hey, is everything ok? You've been really quiet tonight."

It's Emma who notices. She's always the one who notices; the only one who can truly read her when no one else can.

"Mm. Perfectly alright. Just tired. It's been a long day. Conferences that never seemed to end," Regina smiles softly, but it doesn't convince the woman seated before her. The blonde replies with a tight smile, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, and nods away the exchange.

After a quick goodbye, everyone is off to their respective homes. Again, she's alone, walking down dark alleys to her mansion. She isn't afraid to be alone at night, in shadowed paths. She's powerful and can easily defend herself, she thinks, so she takes it slow. The night seems to get darker the further she goes. That's why she doesn't see them coming behind her.

She never catches on to the cloaked figures that have been following her since she left the diner. The first blow comes shockingly fast. They attack her brutally, as if it's something they had practiced beforehand. It's quick and painful. A dense metal stick hits her upper back and she can't react fast enough. Her magic shoots out from her hands, but it reaches no one. The next blow almost knocks her unconscious. She doesn't even have a chance to cry for help. Emma's name dies on her lips. She feels the blood before she sees it, trickling down to her neck from her hair. It feels warm yet cold, familiar yet foreign. She tries to get up, but one of them yells out an obscenity at her and, with a rough kick into her midsection, she rolls away. She wants to be angry, but she can't. It's harder to pull from that emotion now that she's securely locked it away within her. Her magic comes out in a fizzle and they laugh at her impotence. She's never been afraid of people like them, or situations like this, but everything around her looks so fuzzy and she can't see them clearly enough to attempt another shot of magic.

She grunts when they grab her to pull her by the ankle. She lands in the darkest part of the alleyway. They're all talking to her at the same time, telling her things she's done to them and she doesn't bother fighting anymore. She closes her eyes and it's Henry's face that appears behind watery lashes. She hardly said goodbye to him...

"Get away from her!"

A white light brightens the alleyway and the hooded figures fly into the brick walls lining the passageway. She turns into the ground and breathes out roughly, elevating the hairs around her face. She can see her blood dripping onto the course ground from her head and tries to focus on it, to stop everything from spinning. She doesn't see what happens to her attackers. The only thing she can do is wait. It feels like an eternity has passed when she sees a hand move atop hers, calling her name out. She tries to stand and fight back, but her name comes in clearer every time and flecks of blonde hair wave past her own. Emma screams for help.

By the time the police arrive, the four men responsible for assaulting her are lying on the ground, held by piles of concrete and tree limbs that had sprung out through the floor beneath them. They are checked on site by EMT's and followed by police to the hospital. Regina was urged to seek medical treatment at Storybrooke Hospital, but she denied the help. A deep wound on the back of her skull was healed by Emma's magic and she resisted the Sheriff's plea to get checked out for a probable concussion.

She's suffered worse, she thinks.

"You feel like you deserved it." It's not a question. She looks at Emma and sighs, tilting her head to glance down at their shoes before shrugging her shoulders and lightly shaking her head. She bites her bottom lip, hesitating just the slightest, before meeting the savior's green eyes once again.

"I could have done something terrible to them. There's no way to know. I did it to so many. It was bound to happen..."

She stops when she feels a hand slide into hers, grasping it tightly. Emma speaks softly, "That was then. You can't keep punishing yourself for your past. You did what you did and you're better now."

She chuckles at the purity in that statement. How is she better now? Because The Savior says she is? Because she's trying to make good choices? "How does that change anything? I'm good now, but I wasn't then and the things I've done still affects them. They are right in wanting vengeance. They are right in wanting to hurt me as I've hurt them. Whatever I did, the only way I can atone for it is to die."

It comes out so fast that she doesn't have a chance to take it back, to lie to Emma and push everything she feels back into her body where it belongs, where it can only haunt her.

"You can't possibly be serious. Regina, you have done so many good things. You have saved us, saved Henry, atoned in so many ways. Yes, you hurt a lot of people and maybe they will never be able to forgive you for that, but living with it isn't the same as dying with it. It won't change how they feel, it won't make them happy- just like it didn't make you happy. You had a hole in your heart when you were The Evil Queen and so will they. They have to find it within themselves to do what Mary Margaret did, what David did- hell, what I did. We forgave you and we moved on, because you will never be able to change the past, but you can change your future. And that future includes us, whether you like it or not." The blonde sports that shit-eating grin that she always manages to find at just the right moment and it makes Regina smile.

"You're hopeless, you know. All that faith you Charmings have. It must be genetic."

"Hey, let me tell you that little shit you raised is all you. Yesterday he said he couldn't do the dishes because he had important business to attend to. He spent the day planning an entire proposal that he intends to bring forward at the budget meeting this Friday. Something about adding a new study to the curriculum in his school. Wants to call it Trusting Fairytales or some crap. He's determined and smart and he knows who the pissants are," she chuckles, half-pointing to herself.

Regina looks down at their hands still entangled and puts her other one on top of them. "Well, he is royalty after all, dear. Next in line, despite what the town thinks." They both smile. "Thank you."

"Hey, I didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't have..."

"No," Regina interrupts, moving in closer between them. "Emma, thank you. Despite our differences, you have shown compassion and understanding for me more times than I can count. I don't always know how to say the right things, especially when I'm not angry or annoyed. I know I can be very hard to deal with at times, but I really do appreciate you. I want you to know that."

Emma doesn't realize that her thumb had begun to slowly caress the hand inside of hers. She looks down between them and they stay that way for some time. They don't know what this is or what it can be, but they know something is there and just as quickly and they came together, they move apart.

Regina smooths over her hair and the sheriff watches the brunette's face shift from insecure to uncertain.

"We should have dinner together," she spits out. It comes as a demand more than a question and it makes the blonde wince. "What I mean is: Would you like to have dinner with me sometime... in the near future?"

"Oh, Emma. I, um... I don't know if that's..."

"Sure, yea. I get it. I didn't mean for it to come out like that. I just... for Henry, I think it's good that we can be together without needing my parents as chaperones, you know, in the infinitesimal chance that we decide to kill each other."

"Im surprised that you know what "infinitesimal" even means."

"Wow, Madame Mayor, I know words, ok? Some words. All the words... at different... times.

Ok. I heard Henry use it and looked it up. Excuse me for trying to catch up to your royal highnesses." Emma almost bows and courtesies at the same time and Regina tries hard not to laugh.

"There we are," the brunette says. "I knew I'd see the real you again at some point in this conversational thread about definitions." Regina's laughter finally comes and it's so innocent and warm and it makes Emma smile in response.

"Well, since you seem to be frightened by my vast knowledge of the English language, perhaps some other time then?"

She watches the mayor move in closer with confidence this time and she swears it comes from years of being a Queen and needing to exude this conviction in front of thousands. "I'm never frightened," Regina responds, almost leering at Emma, accepting the challenge of such a weak attempt at breaking her pride. "Tomorrow. 8pm-sharp at Café Sienne. It's around the corner from Granny's. Don't be late."

"It's a date then."

It's the possibility of having someone in her life to care about her that allows her to nod in reply.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it is."


End file.
